THEY PERSECUTED ON PRINCIPLE.

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They neither were nor could be chartered as a purely civil nor as a purely spiritual body, but all that related to the rights of man, body and soul, was claimed and enjoyed by them under their charter.

John Cotton understood that the colony possessed all the rights of a 'body politic,' with its attendant responsibilities. In his reply to Williams, he says:

'By the patent certain select men, as magistrates and freemen, have power to make laws, and the magistrates to execute justice and judgment amongst the people according to such laws. By the patent we have power to erect such a government of the Church as is most agreeable to the word, to the estate of the people, and to the gaining of natives, in God's time, first to civility, and then to Christianity. To this authority established by this patent, Englishmen do readily submit themselves; and foreign plantations, the French, the Dutch, the Swedish, do willingly transact their negotiations with us, as with a colony established by the royal authority of the State of England.'

No fault, therefore, is to be found with the Massachusetts Bay authorites for the punishment of civil and political offenders, even with banishment and death, as in the case of Frost, who was banished for crime in 1632, under the sentence: 'He shall be put to death,' if he returned. In 1633 the same thing was repeated in the case of Stone, this Commonwealth assuming the highest prerogative that any civil power can claim, that over life and death. Twenty distinct cases of banishment from the colony are on record within the first seven years of its settlement, fourteen of them occurring within the first year.

Their wrong lay not in these and similar acts for criminal and political causes, but in that they punished men for religious opinions and practices; under the plea, that to hold and express such opinions was a political offense by their laws, although the charter made no such demand of them; but permitted them, had they chosen, to extend equal religious rights to all the Christian colonists, with those which they exercised themselves. The simple fact is, that they wielded the old justification of persecution used by all persecutors from the days of Jesus down: We have a law, and by our law he ought to die,' without once stopping to ask by what right we have such a law. With all their high aims and personal goodness, they repeated the old blunder of law-makers, that those who were not one with them in religious faith should not exercise the rights of men in the body politic, because they must be and were its enemies. There can be but little doubt that with all their high aspirations after civil and religious liberty, the late Dr. Geo. E. Ellis, of Boston, stated their case with what Dr. Dexter pronounces 'admirable accuracy,' thus:

error.

To assume, as some carelessly do, that when Roger Williams and others asserted the right and safety of liberty of conscience, they announced a novelty that was alarming, because it was a novelty, to the authorities of Massachusetts, is a great Our fathers were fully informed as to what it was, what it meant; and they were familiar with such results as it wrought in their day. They knew it well, and what must come of it; and they did not like it; rather they feared and hated it. They did not mean to live where it was indulged; and in the full exercise of their intelligence and prudence, they resolved not to tolerate it among them. They

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identified freedom of conscience only with the objectionable and mischievous results which came of it. They might have met all around them in England, in city and country, all sorts of wild, crude, extravagant and fanatical spirits. They had reason to fear that many whimsical and factious persons would come over hither, expecting to find an unsettled state of things, in which they would have the freest range for their eccentricities. They were prepared to stand on the defensive.'"

This frank and manly statement of the case is truly historical, because it tells the exact truth; although, perhaps, it never occurred to the men of the Bay, that Elizabeth and James had ranked them and their Plymouth brethren with the 'wild, crude, extravagant and fanatical spirits' of their realm. Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, had boasted that he would drive every Lollard out of his diocese, or Make them hop headless, or fry a fagot;' and what better had the Puritans been treated in English city and country?' The barbarous cruelties which had failed to reduce their consciences to submission should have suggested to them at least, as incurables themselves, that it might not be their special and bounden duty as magistrates, to crush out all eccentric religionists who happened to be 'crude,' 'extravagant' and 'fanatical,' as enemies of good civil government. Whether they were justified in so treating those who asserted the right and safety of liberty of conscience, is hardly an open question now. So far as appears, the first resistance made to the politicoreligious law of the colony came from two brothers, John and Samuel Brown, members of the Church of England. In 1629 they set up worship in Salem according to the book of Common Prayer, alleging that the governor and ministers were already 'Separatists, and would be Anabaptists.' Upon the complaint of the ministers and by the authority of the governor they were sent back to England. Endicott says that their conduct in the matter engendered faction and mutiny. The ministers declared that they had come away from the Common Prayer and ceremonies,' and neither could nor would use them, because they judged the imposition of these things to be sinful corruptions in the worship of God.' 10 The first false step of the Puritans of the Bay compelled them to take the second or retreat; but they now proceeded to narrow all admittance into the Commonwealth by the test of religious belief, a step which opened a struggle for liberty of conscience, lasting for more than two hundred years in Massachusetts.

This statement of the civil and religious status of the two colonies of Plymouth and the Bay seenis necessary to a proper understanding of the state of things under which Roger Williams, the great apostle of religious liberty, opened the contest, which compelled these great and good men to take that last step, which new protects every man's conscience in America. The chosen teacher who was to show these two bands 'the way of the Lord more perfectly,' as usual, at the cost of great suffering, was now brought unexpectedly to their doors. The old record says:

'The ship Lyon, Mr. William Pierce master, arrived at Nantasket; she brought Mr. Williams, a godly minister, with his wife, Mr. Throgmorton, and others with their wives and children, about twenty passengers, and about two hundred tons of goods.'

ΤΗ

CHAPTER II.

BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS.

HE first Baptist of America, like the first of Asia, was the herald of a new cation, reign; hence it was fitting that he should have a wilderness education, should increase for a time and then decrease, that the truth might be glorified. Roger Williams, according to the general belief, was born of Welsh parentage about the year 1600. While young he went to London and, by his skill in reporting, attracted the attention of Sir Edward Coke, the great lawyer who framed the Bill of Rights and defended the Commons in their contest with the crown. By his advice and patronage Williams entered the famous Charter House School,' and afterward the University at Cambridge, where Coke himself had been educated, and which was decidedly Puritan in its tone. He was matriculated a pensioner of Pembroke College July 7th, 1625, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1627. For a time he is supposed to have studied law, and this legal training undoubtedly prepared him for his after legislative career. His bent, however, was toward theology, and he finally took orders in the Church of England, together with a parish, probably in Lincolnshire, under the liberal John Williams, afterward Archbishop of York.

Roger was a stern Puritan, opposed to the liturgy and hierarchy as Laud represented them, and being acquainted with John Cotton and other emigrants to America, he determined to make his home in Massachusetts. He left Bristol December 1st, 1630, and reached Boston February 5th, 1631. His ample fortune, learning and godly character commended him, and he was invited to become teacher in the church there, under the pastoral care of John Wilson. He was a sturdy Puritan when he left England, but when he reached Boston he had become a Separatist, and declared openly that he would not unite with the Church there, as he 'durst not officiate to an unseparated people.' The Puritans held the Church of England to be corrupt in its government, ceremonies and persecuting spirit, and having discarded episcopacy and the ritual, had formed Congregational churches in Massachusetts, and therefore he thought that they should not hold fellowship with that Church. After a great struggle he had cut loose from that Church, and says: 'Truly it was as bitter as death to me when Bishop Laud pursued me out of this land, and my conscience was persuaded against the national Church.' He denounced that Church in strong language, but not a whit stronger than every Puritan had used, and this would have given no offense had he rested there. But he admin

istered sharp rebuke of their inconsistency in stopping short of full separation. Others shared his views in this respect, and denounced them as semi-Separatists," insisting that as the principal end of the new plantation was to enjoy a pure religion, the separation should be complete. When Williams found in his refuge a semifellowship with the English Church and the Congregational Churches put under the control of the magistrates, he foresaw at a glance, that corruption and persecution must work out in America the same results that they had wrought in England. At once, therefore, he protested, as a sound-minded man, that the magistrate might not punish a breach of the first table of the law, comprised in the first four of the Ten Commandments.

This was the rebuke that stung the authorities of Massachusetts Bay, and from that moment he had little rest until his banishment. In April, 1631, he was invited to become teacher to the Church at Salem, the eldest Church in the colony, organized August 6, 1629. At once, six members of the court in Boston wrote to Endicott at Salem, warning the Salem people against him as a dangerous man, for broaching the foregoing novel opinions, and asking the Church there to confer with the Boston Council in regard to his case. Upham, who wrote the history of this Church, reports that it was organized On principles of perfect and entire independence of every other ecclesiastical body.' Hence, it acted independently of this advice from Boston and received Williams as its minister on the 12th of April. Felt says: Here we have an indication that the Salem Church, by calling Williams, coincided with his opinions, just specified, and thus differed with the Church in Boston.' This fact accounts for the long struggle between the Salem Church and the colonial government in relation to Williams. That Church and the Church at Plymouth refused communion with members of the Church of England. The first ministers of the Salem Church were Skelton as pastor and Higginson as teacher. Higginson drew up its Articles of Faith, which Hubbard pronounces 'a little discrepant from theirs of Plymouth,' yet not so different but that Governor Bradford, the Separatist delegate' from Plymouth, gave the hand of fellowship when the Salem Church was recognized. For a considerable time the other Churches of the Bay looked askance at the Salem Church. Winthrop arrived at Salem from England, in the Arbella, on Saturday, June 12th, 1630, where he and others went ashore, but returned to the ship for Sunday, because, as Cotton says, Skelton could not 'Conscientiously admit them to his communion, nor allow any of their chil dren to be baptized. The reason of such scruple is, that they are not members of the Reformed Churches, like those of Salem and Plymouth.'

This treatment of Winthrop drew forth a severe letter from Cotton to Skelton, dated October 2d, 1630, in which he says that he is not a little troubled' That you should deny the Lord's Supper to such godly and faithful servants of Christ as Mr. Governor, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dudley, and Mr. Coddington. . . . My grief increased upon me when I heard you denied baptism to Mr. Coddington's child, and that

upon a reason worse than the fact, namely, that he was not a member of one of the Reformed Churches. He then argues that both Skelton and John Robinson were wrong in taking such ground. Robinson and Brewster had taken this position in their letter to Sir John Worsingham, January 27th, 1618: 'We do administer baptism only to such infants as whereof the one parent at the least is of some Church.' Coddington was a member of a National Church, and not one of 'saints by calling,' as Robinson's in Leyden and Skelton's in Salem; and therefore, the latter would neither christen his child nor allow him at communion. Truly had Robinson said: The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word,' which light was beginning to gleam in Salem. These facts greatly assist us in understanding the animus of resistance to Williams at every step, and why Morton says that in one year's time he had filled Salem with principles of rigid separation, and tending to Anabaptistry.' The soil had been prepared to his hands under the ministry of Skelton and Higginson, who despite themselves had drifted to the verge of Baptist principles without intending to be Baptists.

Williams was not permitted an undisturbed life at Salem, although his services were greatly blessed in that community. The Massachusetts Court could not forget its unheeded advice to that Church, and he had no rest. In his magnanimity, rather than contend with them, he withdrew at the end of the summer to Plymouth, beyond the jurisdiction of the Bay Company, where he found warm friends, and employed his high attainments in assisting Ralph Smith, pastor of the Mayflower Church. The Bay men spared no efforts to make the Plymouth Church restless under its new teacher, and even kind hearted Brewster, the ruling elder of that Church, became set against him, stern Separatist as he was and had been from Scrooby down. He saw something in Roger which reminded him of John Smyth. 'Anabaptistry' had always acted on the good old elder's nerves like a red flag on the masculine head amongst neat cattle, and Williams's principles raised his honest fear that Roger would actually 'Run the same course of rigid separation and anabaptistry which Mr. John Smyth, the Se-Baptist at Amsterdam, had done.' At this time Skelton's health failed, in August, 1634, he died, and Williams was called back to Salem, first as supply then as his successor. He returned, accompanied by members of the Plymouth Church, who could not forego the more light' which was breaking in upon them through his ministry. He was made a great blessing to the Church, but outsiders could not let him alone, and their constant interference tried his patience to the uttermost. Upham says: 'He was faithfully and resolutely protected by the people of Salem, through years of persecution from without, and it was only by the persevering and combined efforts of all the other towns and Churches that his separation and banishment were finally effected.'

In December, 1633, the General Court convened to consult upon a treatise of his, in which he disputed the right of the colonies to their lands under their patent. This work is not extant, and we can only judge of it from the account given by